Friday, July 13, 2007

Kaizen Crazy

Have you missed me? Huh? Yeah, I knew you would!

So where have I been? What have I been up to? What could possibly keep me from visiting my dear bloggy friends?

We call it Kaizen and it was…um…fun. Oh, wait, management doesn’t read this! It was long, stressful and frustrating. A whole week of hashing out our current processes to see where we are wasting time and eliminate that waste. I definitely won’t be boring you with those details.

All in all, I’m satisfied – mostly with being DONE with the whole thing – but also because I was actually HEARD. I said, “Well, what about this?” and people actually said, “Yeah, that’s a great idea! Let’s do it!” Instead of the usual, “Yeah, sure, whatever, we’ll see.” It feels SO great to have your ideas not only recognized, but implemented as well.

And now that it’s all over – I don’t even hate the facilitator anymore. She’s an energetic Canadian girl – probably my age. She didn’t really start getting on my nerves until Day 2. When she not only made us stay 12 hours but was a bitch to boot. I declared Tuesday night I wouldn’t be back. I did go back, of course, and got an apology AND was not made to do any of the ridiculous consequences any of the times I was late. Yay for me. I teetered on kind of liking her and wanting to bitch slap her all week. But now, I just want her to go home to Canadia (where we teased her from being from – “What alphabet do you use in Canadia?”) and have a happy life far, far away from our meeting room.

Random notes taken out of my notebook…

“The cologne is overwhelming.” Besides me, there were 14 other people in this meeting. All men - who apparently have no control over how much cologne they use.

“I AM DEAF!” I spent AT LEAST 3 out of the 6 hours we spent walking the manufacturing floor completely oblivious to what was going on because I have a hard time hearing around machines.

“Someone should tell her.” This was written when the facilitator pulled a mini-Janet and nearly exposed her whole boob. For at least twenty minutes, she walked around the room talking – and flashing the goods waiting to finish busting out. I tried to catch her eye and signal her (I WAS the only other woman) – but once she went over the time she said we could go to break, I just let it go. Yeah, I’m a bitch like that. This statement was circled to remind me of the giant rat’s nest in the back of her head. I thought about telling her about that, too. But let it go because it was Tuesday and I hated her. She noticed it YESTERDAY (thanks for coming, don’t bother showering, though!).

As you may be able to tell, it’s been a long week. My work is backed up. My family misses me (aww!). And I am extremely grateful to be done with the whole she-bang.

Next week we will return with our regularly scheduled blogging.

16 comments:

Brillig said...

HAHAHA. Oh my gosh. I love the notes from your notebook. I wanna feel bad for the lady, but at the same time... I'm kinda loving it. You're so funny.

But most importantly, YAY FOR BEING HEARD!!! That's so cool! Now, i hope there's a massive raise to accompany your obvious brilliance!

Whiskeymarie said...

Glad the week...worked out?

have a good weekend, decompress and enjoy the family.

p.s. I'm glad you didn't tell her.
;)

lady macleod said...

I am pleased you survived!

Kristina said...

Happy done with crappy meeting week!

Kellyology said...

The boob thing...lol. It's like something out of office space! Glad you're back.

Kateastrophe said...

Well THAT sounded like no fun at all! Sorry you had to deal with a whole week of it! Glad to have you back!

Pollyanna said...

Yes, VERY glad to have you back. That meeting sounded brutal. I HATE things like that too. It always seems like a huge waste of time to me. I am really glad you were heard though, that is AWESOME!

Butrfly Garden said...

I think the boob flash was probably the best part of the week. Especially because I know EVERYONE saw it. She kept bending down next to my boss to click her computer to the next slide, you could FEEL how uncomfortable he was!

Anonymous said...

Who the F covers themselves in cologne for an internal business meeting?

Canadian flake said...

lol I would say WTG but ya know I can't go against another "canadia-an" if ya know what I mean..lmao. Was this woman a government official?? She sure sounds like a few of the idiots we got runnin things up here...lmao.

Butrfly Garden said...

Goldy - I have NO idea. It wasn't so bad the rest of the week, but monday morning, they nearly killed me! My guess is because there were a lot of techs and they're not used to being with the office people?

Canadian Flake - we have Canadian sites for our company, so we end up working with a lot of Canadians. I can understand the loyalty. ;)

exskindiver said...

did the whole breast end up making an appearance?

Cherann said...

My hair often looks like a rats nest. After college...I just didn't see a reason why I should do my hair every day.

Butrfly Garden said...

chesca-no, she realized it was peeking out over break, I guess. It was OVER buttoned when we came back.

Cherann - I don't do my hair every day, either. But she didn't wash it the whole week! Maybe she had a weird shower phobia. But, no, she had probably a two-inch wide chunk that was all ratted into a ball together. I couldn't believe she didn't notice it sooner. I would have felt it hanging off my head, I would think.

Stacey said...

Ohhh...the dreaded Kaizen.

Glad you survived it!

Sugar Kane said...

I wouldn't have told her either!

Isn't recognition great? Glad it went well...